Sailor-conservationist to direct group's efforts on Santa Cruz Island

Eamon O'Byrne caught his first glimpse of Santa Cruz Island four years ago.

Based in San Francisco at the time, he had just started working for The Nature Conservancy and was asked to go to the island off the Ventura County coast.

"It's quite something to see an island in the process of healing itself," said O'Byrne, recently named island director for The Nature Conservancy, which owns most of Santa Cruz.

He remembers seeing the landscape cut up from years of overgrazing but also native vegetation growing back.

The eastern end of Santa Cruz, the largest of the Channel Islands, is owned by the National Park Service. The rest of the 96-square-mile island is privately owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy, which preserves land around the world.

Both groups have spent the past few decades working to restore the island to its natural habitat, doing such things as bringing the tiny island fox back from near extinction and re-establishing bald eagle nests.

After his first trip, O'Byrne, 46, later returned for a staff retreat, spending three days on Santa Cruz. He kayaked along the coast and spotted Garibaldi fish swimming under the boat.

Now he's tasked with directing operations there and started his new job last month. He previously was associate operations director for the conservancy's California chapter, based in San Francisco.

"Santa Cruz Island has been the centerpiece of The Nature Conservancy's efforts in this area for more than 30 years," said regional director Alfredo Gonzalez.

O'Byrne's ability to manage big projects and collaborate with multiple partners made him a good fit for the post. Pooling resources and expertise can help as agencies face challenges such as the effects of global climate change, officials said.

After graduating from University College Dublin in Ireland with a double major in English and history, O'Byrne said he got involved in adventure sports.

"I started off in my early 20s working in the outdoor adventure world — sailing, hiking, rock climbing," said O'Byrne, a licensed deck officer. "I spent a lot of time as a professional guide and instructor in a lot of those types of sports."

His wife, Stephanie, was on a business trip in Ireland when they met nearly 20 years ago. They later moved to San Francisco.

"As I got older, I started to realize that the places I love to have fun — the ocean, the mountains — they were fragile environments," he said. "I felt more and more a calling to really become engaged in protecting these wonderful places."

On his honeymoon, he traveled with his wife from national park to national park as they made their way from New York to San Francisco.

"It just absolutely blew me away that a country could say: ‘We're going to set aside these lands, these areas, for everybody, and we're going to protect them for everybody — not just for everybody right now, but everybody in the future,' " O'Byrne said.

He takes over from Lotus Vermeer, who was the conservancy's islands director for about eight years. A marine biologist, she was promoted to oversee a program overseeing sustainable marine practices, Gonzalez said.

Officials say the biggest challenge for Santa Cruz likely will be climate change.

"Islands are incredibly vulnerable, more than almost any other type of habitat," O'Byrne said. "If something goes wrong, if you break a link in the ecological chain, very quickly the whole ecology can degrade."

A connection with the public is one of the most important relationships to maintain, he said. "It means people care about the island. It means we will have a constituency we will be able to work with in the future."

Eamon O'Byrne

Age: 46

Job: California Islands program director, The Nature Conservancy

Family: Married to Stephanie Linder, advancement director for the Sierra Club

Residence: Renting near Ojai while looking for a home

Favorite spot: Denali National Park in Alaska, where he recently saw 15 grizzly bears in the wild